Sublime

“His name was Horatio Brown. A throwback,” I said, smiling at the memory. “The type who kept a bottle of whiskey in his desk. Smoked three packs a day. Would occasionally flip through a thick file of his favorite dirty photos that he’d snapped on the job. Believed, as a physical rule of the universe, that every client was lying to him. In that,

“Clyde Waggoner. I’m Martin’s father.” The man from Okeechobee was wearing a white rayon tie with a blue chambray work shirt, and khaki trousers. There was a thin nylon Sears windbreaker folded over his left arm.

Father grinned and winked at his visitor. Joe Kane decided that the man who confronted him was mildly insane but harmless.

Roy and the old couple, Harvey and Rita, were the only ones left. They brought Roy to New York when he was barely twenty-five and set him up running “errands” now and again for some heavy people in Brooklyn. As a rule, they didn’t trust him with anything too complicated, on account of they didn’t think Roy was all that bright. Outside of Albert,

“Well, it ain’t his folks paying your bills, I don’t have to be a detective to know that.” Althea puts her hands behind her head and stretches, jutting out a truly mammoth bosom that shades half her desk.

“It was a squad car, Hoke. I was down there with Nelson to pick up a fence. We never found him, either. But that brick was it. I’d been wavering, because of the money and all, but the next morning I called the chief in Sebring. He’s a nice guy, too, Hoke. You’d like him. He’s a retired detective from Newark. That’s in New Jersey.” “I know where